"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Friday, October 21, 2011

Birthdays Today - Dizzy Gillespie

The great jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was born today in 1917.   Gillespie's compositions in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and his playing, often with Charlie Parker on sax, comprised the founding statement of modern jazz.   His unique style of playing with his cheeks puffed out is probably the most memorable visually in all of jazz.   Here he is with Parker in 1952 on "Hot House":

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